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“Noland? What’s the matter with you?”
Noland’s eyes came into focus as if he’d realized someone was speaking to him. His lips trembled, and he looked terrified. He started yelling something, but Bradley couldn’t understand a word of it.
“Hold on! I can’t understand you, remember? Just cool it.”
Bradley put up his hands in what he thought was a calming gesture, but that only startled Noland.
He raised the syringe like a dagger and tried to stab Bradley. Bradley was six two and built like a linebacker, so he didn’t have any trouble brushing the skinny Noland aside.
The corpsman flew over a table, but he jumped back to his feet still brandishing the syringe like a weapon.
Bradley was mystified by Noland’s sudden transformation from mild-mannered medical officer to crazed psycho.
“What’s wrong with you, man?”
Noland shouted something again, waving his arms wildly like he was trying to make some kind of point. Bradley shook his head.
“Calm down, Noland! Jeez! I—”
Noland didn’t wait for Bradley to finish and lunged forward again, slashing at him with the needle as if he were desperately trying to ward off a rabid dog.
Bradley grabbed Noland’s wrist and twisted him around until he had his arm around the corpsman’s neck. He clenched the wrist of the hand holding the syringe, but Noland wouldn’t let go. Bradley would have to snap the wrist to get him to drop it.
Instead, he squeezed Noland’s neck until the sailor went limp. Bradley gently laid him on the floor and went to find someone to help him get Noland under control before he woke up.
When he got out into the corridor, rather than finding assistance, he found a madhouse.
A few of the sailors in both directions were going at one another in free-for-alls that wouldn’t be out of place in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
But many of them simply looked scared out of their wits. Two were curled up on the floor openly weeping. One was wandering the hall in a daze. And another sailor was bashing his own head against a hatch so forcefully that he tore a gash in his brow.
Even with all of his intensive training, Bradley froze, unsure of what to do. He’d never simulated anything close to this. He wondered if some kind of nerve gas or radiation leak had caused the deranged behavior, but then he dismissed that possibility because he was unaffected. Surely he wasn’t the only one immune to whatever was causing this pandemonium.
He had to get to the control room and find the captain. Maybe the condition was limited to the lower part of the boat.
Bradley ran down the corridor, warding off attacks by his crazed crewmates. He climbed the stairs and finally made it to the control room. Some of the command crew had fled, leaving many of the controls unmanned. Two men were lying on the deck with severe injuries. One of them was the XO, executive officer, who had a mortal wound on the back of his head.
The captain was sitting in his chair with his face cradled in his hands.
Bradley rushed over and shook him by the shoulders.
“Captain! We need to surface! Something is infecting the crew!”
Bradley had never seen the normally stoic captain get flustered, but now tears were streaming down the man’s cheeks. He bore the same expression Noland had, staring into infinity.
Bradley slapped him across the face, but it didn’t snap the captain out of his trance. Instead, he collapsed to the floor and started screaming.
The entire control room was bedlam. One man seemed intent on his task. It was the sailor at one of the two yokes steering the sub. He had a demented look on his face and was pushing the wheel all the way forward.
Bradley looked at the depth gauge. It was at twelve hundred feet and dropping fast. Soon they’d be at crush depth and the sub’s hull would implode.
Bradley yanked the sailor from his seat and slammed his head against the instruments panel to knock him out. He took a seat in the chair and pulled back on both yokes. He’d never driven a Los Angeles–class sub before, but the principle had to be the same as for the SEAL Delivery Vehicle he’d been training on.
The sub leveled off at fourteen hundred feet and started rising again. Bradley would have blown the ballast if he knew how, but choosing the wrong switch could just as easily flood the entire boat as surface it. They were at maximum speed. He’d have to worry later about how to slow them down.
He breathed easier when they were back above nine hundred fifty feet, the Kansas City’s normal maximum operating depth. They were cruising off the coast of Brazil near the Amazon River Delta, but they must have been out past the edge of the shallower continental shelf because they hadn’t slammed into the bottom of the ocean yet.
Bradley planned to radio for help from the Brazilian Navy as soon as he could. The SEAL mission for this war game had been to penetrate Brazil’s defenses and infiltrate a base located at the mouth of the Amazon.
